James Damore: “Women Caused the Pay Gap”

By MICHEAL A. GUILFORD

Staff Writer

Late July 2017, Google Engineer, James Damore circulated a 10-page anti-diversity memo amongst engineering staff. By August, internally circulated memo began to cause uproar on Twitter.  The content in the memo was divisive but the message clear; women are less biologically suited to science, technology, education and math (STEM) careers than men. By August 7, Damore was fired from Google. According to Damore and his supporters, “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” was silencing the voice of “conservative criticism”.

According to the memo circulated by Damore, he attributed the vast underrepresentation and under compensation of females employed in STEM careers as a fault of biological differences making them ill-suited to deal with the rigors and stress of what he deemed an “object “oriented career.

Damore also argues that the gender pay gap is caused by women simply because women were just worse than men, Damore states, “Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness.  This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading….”

However, a 2016 study done by Cass Business School in London would disagree finding women are 25% less likely to receive a pay hike when asking. The study also found women ask for raises as often as men do. Data collected by 4600 workers in Australia from 800 employers found women are not only just as tenacious as men when asking for salary increases, but typical arguments about gender differences and lifestyle choices accounting for compensation discrepancies are less than valid, having more to do with inherent bias and discrimination.

Two landmark studies found women, despite having identical qualifications to male counterparts, receive fewer offers. A study done in Philadelphia in 1996 used pseudo job seekers to send resumes applying for table waiting jobs. Interview offers from high priced restaurants were 40% lower for women than for men and job offers were 50% lower than men.

A second set of studies adopting blind auditions for symphony orchestras employed a screen concealing identities of candidates according to a study done by Goldin & Rouse, 2000. “The screen substantially increased the probability that a woman would advance our preliminary rounds and be the winner in the final round.” Switching to blind auditions found a 25% increase of females in the top five symphony orchestras in the United States. Figures rose from less than 5% female musicians in 1970 to 25% in 1996.

Damore’s second observation is even more short sighted and bitterly ironic: “These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics.” Says Damore.

History, tells another story. Before computers were synonymous with plastic, and microchips, computer was the title given to a human. Programming, was done manually in a field almost exclusively dominated by women. Male engineers considered programming low skilled, akin to clerical work such as typing, filing or answering phones.

Managers offered real work; the work related to managing hardware components to men as software development was considered less important and less masculine. The Programming field was so vogue that Cosmopolitan Magazine heralded programming as chic and fashionable, Brenda D. Frink at Stanfords Gender News explained: “As late as the 1960s many people perceived computer programming as a natural career choice for savvy young women. Even the trend-spotters urged their fashionable female readership to consider careers in programming. In an article titled “The Computer Girls,” the magazine described the field as offering better job opportunities for women than many other professional careers”.       Employers began to understand the importance of programming as women suggested hardware improvements, significantly increasing productivity for male counterparts. Men entering programming wanting more status, eventually started masculinizing the field, pushing women out by discouraging their hiring.

Damore’s assertions that women are biologically ill suited to careers in STEM are embarrassingly ignorant when recalling the history of the field.

America: Cutting back on culture

By KYLEE BAGLEY

Staff Writer

Gentrification is rapidly spreading throughout all major cities in the U.S. by erasing the cultures that once made these cities so vibrant. Gentrification is defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary as, “the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents.” While the general ideas of renewal and rebuilding are a solid foundation, the phenomena that gentrification has become in recent years shows the increasing lack of compassion for things that do not directly affect us.

In cities such as Philadelphia and Brooklyn, gentrification stands out in stark contrast to the urban spaces that have yet to be enshrouded by hipster coffee shops, microbreweries, and luxury apartments. At first thought, gentrification comes off as a good theory. Most definitions lack the latter part, actively ignoring the thousands of people who are evicted or forced to leave their homes by rent increases designed to push out individuals and families that don’t fit the new white-washed neighborhoods. If utilized correctly, the basis of renewal and rebuilding could make neighborhoods such as those surrounding Temple University in Philadelphia, flourish in ways that celebrate the diverse cultures that make these communities home to so many people.

Instead of displacing those who cannot afford the increased price of living, couldn’t the city government assist the current residents and business owners in gaining a post-secondary education, evolving their businesses, and growing their own community? Of course, this wouldn’t make as much profit for the city government, and in a country as profit-focused as America, that’s a no go.

According to a recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, about 15 percent of Philadelphia neighborhoods are being gentrified. Comparably, research by governing.com shows that 29.8 percent of Brooklyn neighborhoods have been gentrifying since 2000. The merger of the affluent and the low-income residents usually results in tension and misunderstanding. This leaves the minorities who were born and raised in the neighborhood feeling like outsiders, where they once felt most comfortable.

Jenae McDonald, a friend of mine who lives in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, is currently facing the harsh realities of gentrification, every time she walks out her front door. When asked what’s changed and why it matters, McDonald had this to say: “The culture behind the neighborhood is what’s changing more than anything. Kids don’t even play outside anymore. Block parties aren’t even thriving like they use to. Gentrification not only drives away people but the souls of the people. There used to be a comfort walking down the block and I don’t physically feel that anymore. Caribbean restaurants have even watered down themselves to accommodate the new wave of people. The fact that culture is blatantly being stripped separates us more than anything. Instead of unifying us in the community, gentrification only leaves disdain.”

We all enjoy overpriced coffee shops and perusing quirky clothing stores, but there are plenty of them in the more affluent parts of the city that make displacing hoards of people from their homes seem excessive at the very least. Gentrification takes culture and tradition and assimilates it into a bland “melting pot”, where the diverse cultures that created America as the powerful immigrant country it once was, are only showcased as Halloween costumes and in off-color humor.

Bernie Sanders saves with the College For All Act By Russell Garvey, Jr., Staff Writer

In May 2015, Senator Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, proposed a new bill eliminating undergrad tuition at four-year colleges and universities. Sen. Sanders has named the bill The College For All Act.

This bill will also help lower interest rates on currently held federal student loans, allowing graduates to refinance their existing loans at new lower rates. The bill includes to stop the government from making profit on student loans. Sanders’ intent with the new loan rates is to fix the U.S.’s $1.20 trillion student debt problem.

Sen. Sanders plan is to produce the bulk of the needed funds for this bill “by a small tax on financial transactions such as stocks and bonds,” a Wall Street speculation tax. Sanders proposes “instituting a 0.5% tax on trades of stocks and a 0.1% tax on bonds and an even smaller fee on so-called derivatives, such as stock options and futures contracts. This will generate up to $300 billion a year,” reported by CNN Money.

The new act will lower student loan interest rates to the formula, which was in effect until 2006. Interest rates will almost be cut in half for undergraduates, dropping from 4.32 percent to a more reasonable 2.32 percent. The legislation guarantees that the rates would never rise above 8.25 percent.

“At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, at a time when trillions of dollars in wealth have left the pockets of the middle class and have gone to the top one-tenth of one percent, at a time when the wealthiest people in this country have made huge amounts of money from risky derivative transactions and the soaring value of the stock market, this legislation would impose a Wall Street speculation fee on Wall Street investment houses and hedge funds,” Sanders said.

This Wall Street speculation tax will have the government cover roughly two-thirds of the total cost while the states will pick up the balance. “It is a national disgrace that hundreds of thousands of Americans today do not go to college, not because they are unqualified, but because they cannot afford it. This is absolutely counter-productive to our efforts to create a strong competitive economy and a vibrant middle class. This disgrace has got to end,” Sanders said in a statement.

The College For All Act will have some requirements that will need to be met for each state. According to Sen. Sanders’ website, “States will need to maintain spending on their higher education systems, on academic instruction, and on need-based financial aid.” Also, colleges must reduce dependence on low-paid adjunct professors. Included in this bill, there can be no funding used for administration salaries, merit-based financial aid, or construction of non-academic buildings, such as stadiums and student centers.

Sen. Sanders does recognize that congressional Republicans would never support the taxes designed to fund this bill but Sanders knows “the American people will go along with it.” Sanders’ new bill will hopefully bring the United States up to a new level, educationally and economically with the rest of the world.

For more information on Bernie Sanders and his proposed College For All Act, visit his congressional website at http://www.sanders.senate.gov

Happy Birthday to You

Lenny Deserio
Staff Writer

Happy Birthday!  You’ve grown a year older and gained a little weight from the delicious Carvel Vanilla Ice Cream Cake you’ve just enjoyed. What’s most shocking isn’t the thirty bucks you dished out to buy the cake, it’s the fact that somewhere someone just bought the same exact cake at your local grocery store with your hard earned money.

You’re probably asking yourself how a complete stranger was able to buy a birthday cake with your own money. The answer is welfare. Every month the government hands out your money they collect through taxes and gives it to someone who doesn’t have a job so they can buy their kid an expensive birthday cake along with other unnecessary junk food. The time for welfare reform is here.

Perhaps you’re still not convinced of the need for welfare reform.  And you’re convinced I’m some cold-hearted arrogant capitalist who feels people have no right to ask for help. Well perhaps I am. We live in a society where it’s every man women and child for themselves right?

 Of course I’m being sarcastic when I say people have no right to ask their neighbor for a little assistance. I just feel the welfare system should be more efficient and just.

  frequently as a cashier I see people driving around in expensive cars and they pay with food stamps. Meanwhile a single mom working three jobs, driving a second hand car, and desperately in need of a little help can’t receive any because she is told she makes too much money. These are the people who ought to receive public assistance, not someone who chooses not to work but still manages to drive a Mercedes Benz or BMW.